My version of the events
by titaniumroze
Summary: I'm telling the story this time Kelp Head, you missed your turn. Anyway, you don't know half the stuff that I know - but everyone knows about your life! Yeah, yeah, I know it's immature to brag - but you called me Pinceone Face! So here's my version of the events, and the stuff leading up to it. The Muses would be proud; Apollo told them that I couldn't write! ON HIATUS
1. Lose one, gain one

**He was gone**

I'd looked everywhere for my brother, Jason Grace, and I couldn't find him. I know that he's only a toddler, and he could have crawled off, but not that far. I have a really bad feeling that I'm never going to see him again.

* * *

**One year later I met him. The boy of my dreams. Literally. I was only ten, but I knew that he was the one for me. It was him or no-one.**

I ran into the old warehouse that I had been staying in since I escaped my home, while looking behind me for the monsters I had seen. I knew monsters couldn't be real; but then why did they always chase me? I crouched down on the ground behind a stack of crates, and activated the wristband that my father had given me. I never knew my father, but on my ninth birthday, my mom gave me this band as a gift from him. I'd found out shortly after that if I hit it in the right place, it could turn into a shiny shield. Now I know this might sound ridiculous, but it's true! It seemed to push back the monsters. Sometimes it scared me a little. The shield had a fierce design – it looked Greek. I called it Aegis. The shield has the head of Medusa carved into the bronze, and even though it won't turn you to stone, it's so horrible; most people will panic and run from the sight of it.

I froze as if I had looked into Medusa's eyes when I heard a noise. Monsters could never get in here. I was sure of that. I had gone so far as to try and taunt them over the boundary line I had hastily drawn, but some kind of magic always held them back. So what was that noise? I drew the sleek bronze knife that I always carried around with me and snuck towards the creator of the noise. I hid behind a wooden beam and saw that it was a boy, not two years older than me. I almost dropped my weapon in surprise. I had not seen another human since I had left home. He was tall, with sandy-blond hair, and a slightly upturned nose. He was handsome, and looked as if he smiled a lot – but he wasn't right now. He was perching on the edge of a box, a sword across his knees. He was glancing around anxiously. It was as if he could see the monsters too.

I stepped out from behind the beam and he jumped up, sword at the ready. I held my hands up in peace, when I realised I was still holding my knife. I slid it back into its sheaf and he visibly relaxed. He put his sword on the ground and then stepped towards me curiously. He mumbled to himself.

"Demigod obviously, but of who? Must be strong – drew boundary line. Poseidon?" I shook my head. If I had imagined myself with a Greek God as my father, I had always wanted it to be Zeus. I spoke up.

"I don't like water. But I like air. Look what I can do!" I held up my hand and he stared as I made sparks jump across it.

"But-how?" he was stumped. I offered him some help.

"Zeus? Well, if I had a Greek God as a dad! Wouldn't that be cool?" he cocked his head to the side, evaluating me. I suddenly felt self-conscious. I hadn't brushed my jet-black hair in weeks, and my face was covered with dirt. The one thing I liked about my appearance was my bright blue eye. I held out my hand to break the uncomfortable silence. "I'm Thalia. And you are?" I let the question hang. I still had a million others to ask him, but I was trying not to overwhelm him.

"Luke. Son of Hermes. I think." he winked at me and shook my hand. We sat back down on the box and he explained things to me without my having to ask. Apparently I'm a demigod, Daughter of Zeus. I almost didn't want to believe him, but I could tell that he was telling the truth. I knew all about the Greek Gods, thanks to my mom forcing me to take an extra class about them in school. Surprisingly, I actually found them quite interesting.

Monsters were apparently real too, and the boundary line was only kept there by my father's power – none of my own. My father had really been there for me when I needed him. We talked about our adventures, and why we had left home. He nodded sadly when he heard about my mom. He told me about his problems with his mother, and how she was mad. I entirely sympathised with him. He'd been on the run for 3 years, which felt like an age compared to my one.

He told me all about a camp for demigods to train, and I instantly perked up. He even suggested that we made plans to get there. He said it was in New York, and my mood dropped. How were we going to get from the outskirts of Los Angeles to New York? It was across the other side of the country, and neither of us had any money. My gut plummeted.

"Shall we discuss this in the morning?" he suggested. I glanced at my wrist, where the watch now was. We had been talking for hours, and the sun had been down for almost as long.

"Sure." I said. I stood up and stretched, not realising how cramped I had been. I climbed up the stairs to the small loft where I had made my room. It was sparse, but it was all mine. All it had in it was and old, tattered blanket and roll mat, a sleeping bag, spare clothes and a camping stove. I also had a tent but I didn't use that at the moment. The bag I used to carry all of this was almost half my weight, but I had spent most of the journey here on the train, with only a couple of hours walking. I do most of my scouting with only a bottle of water nowadays. I picked up the photo frame that was lying next to my bed. It was a photo of my mom, Jason and I shortly before he disappeared. I placed it back down and turned to see Luke standing at the doorway.

"You can come in here if you want. There's plenty of space." I backed up my point with a gesture of my arm. He nodded a thanks and laid down his belongings on the floor. He had even less then me – no roll mat or blanket and no stove. I offered to share mine and we cooked in silence. As we crawled into our sleeping bags, I asked him my last question. "Luke, what are we going to do?" my eyes were closed and I could only see darkness.

"I don't know, but I know that I'll always stick with you, Thals."

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_Thanks for reading my first fanfic! Please review and tell me what you like and don't like - but not mean comments please :)_


	2. More monsters

**As Luke and I got closer, more monsters chased us.**

We had left the sanctuary of the warehouse in favour of moving around, and we hadn't stayed in one place or more than a week. I jumped up from where I was sitting on watch outside our tent when I heard a sound, and instantly hit my shield. Something was coming through the bushes. I raised my shield and drew my knife. I was debating about whether to wake Luke or not, and I decided against it. Then Luke came stumbling through the trees, and I dropped my weapons to run over to help him.

I supported him under one of my arms and led him over to the tent. I sat him down on his sleeping bag and made sure he was okay. He looked fine, if a little dazed.

"What happened Luke?" I asked, "I thought you were in here, sleeping." He shook his head; gritting his teeth against the pain it seemed to cause him. I dug some medicine out of my bag while he answered.

"I just went out to scout. I didn't want to alarm you, but I saw tracks this morning." He glanced down at what I was doing. "And you can use this instead. It has healing properties for us demigods, but we can't have too much. Humans can't have it – they'll die." He opened the top pocket of his bag and took out a freezer bag of small chewable squares, and a thermos full of some liquid. He gestured to one and then the other. "These are ambrosia squares. Only eat them when you really need it." He pulled on out of the bag and chewed it before swallowing. "This is nectar, the same as the ambrosia, but liquid. Have a sip." He gave me the thermos. "Not too much, mind." I lifted the bottle to my lips and was surprised by the taste. It was like the sweetest tea I had ever come across; the type my mom had used to make. I missed tea; they almost never made it well enough in this country. I sometimes thought about going to England just for the tea!

"Wow." I said – voicing my only thoughts.

"What does it taste like to you?" he asked curiously.

"Sweet tea. Why? Does it taste different to you?" he nodded.

"Mine tastes like cough medicine. The nice type that my mom used to give to me whenever I was ill." I wrinkled my nose. I had never liked taking pills. He rolled his eyes and gently pulled the thermos out of my hands and screwed it up. "Never take too much – we could burn up."

I sat back and then instantly leaned forwards. "So what happened?" I asked, "Did you find anything?" I mentally preyed that he didn't, as I had experienced enough monsters for one day. Lamia, who preys on children, we only just managed to defeat. Then almost immediately after, we were ambushed by an Ipotane. It was a half-crazed version of a centaur, but as its front legs were human arms, it was easy to run from. Now, would we have to move again from another monster? That makes twice in one night. He grinned, like he found the situation amusing. He soon stopped when he saw my expression.

"Relax, it was only a Mormo. It looked a bit like a vampire women and it was screaming at me: 'Bad child! Bad child! I bite you now!' I gave myself this," He pointed to a small cut on his arm. "To distract her. It worked – she was too confused to see what I was doing, and before she knew it." He drew a line across his throat.

I smiled broadly. I'd always been impressed with his fighting skills. Whenever we fought together, we seemed to have mutually developed tactics. I always took point because of Aegis, and Luke always took rear, to throw them off and finish them. It was a tactic that had never failed – yet.

I grabbed his arm to look closer at the cut. "Actually, this is deeper then you think. I'm going to need to treat it." Luke rolled his eyes.

"Seriously Thals, you think everything is bad. Do you remember when I fell over last week? You made me check into a mortal hospital to check if I had gotten a concussion!" I glared at him.

"Yeah, yeah. You're never going to let that go, are you?" he shook his head with a smirk on his face.

"Nope." He replied, popping the 'p'.

"But seriously." I said, practically ignoring his answer. "I'm going to need to clean and bandage this. It's infected." Luke looked down at his cut and widened his eyes in surprise when he found that I was indeed right.

I sat back on my roll mat and started to look through my bag for the first aid kit. I pulled out an ambrosia square and handed it to him silently. As I treated his wound, he chatted aimlessly about the monsters we'd been forced to face.

"There was that dog – wasn't there! He ran straight past us. I think he was the Laelaps! And that Karkinos that came out of the sea in San Francisco! I swear it would have eaten us if we hadn't gotten on that train! Do you remember that Phoenix? I was so frightened when it went up in flames. I thought I'd done something to it and that I was actually a son of Hephaestus!" I nodded as he talked on, occasionally adding an 'mmhm' or a 'yeah'. Eventually I was finished.

"Have you learnt your lesson now Luke?" I teased. He pretended to be ashamed and hung his head.

"Yes miss." He peeked up at me through his long, blonde lashes and I cracked. I laughed out loud and he joined in.

"But you have been acting like a 6 year old for that last 10 minutes!" I giggled. "You haven't stopped babbling!" he turned his head to look at me, and I knew I was in trouble. I started to scramble up, but I didn't even get out of the tent before he caught me.

I screamed as he tickled me relentlessly; he knew all of my weak spots. He eventually gave up and I sighed in relief.

"Just remember to clean your sword." I added, before ducking out of the tent to take first watch.

"Oh look, here's a convenient pile of Thalia's clothes to wipe it on." I heard him mumble. I charged back inside.

"Oh no you don't!" but I only saw him lying on his back, arms behind his head, grinning at me.

"Two can play at this game." He winked.

"Yeah, two can." I said, walking back outside. I made a mental note to get him later.


	3. Pranks and planning

Luke awoke to him hanging outside our tent on a tree. I'd decided to leave him there as a prank, knowing that Hermes hated slowness; and therefore Luke might to. I popped my head outside the tent.

"How are you _hanging_ in there Luke?" I asked, a massive grin spreading over my face at his expression. He asked for it – telling me that two could play at the game I hadn't even realised we had started. As soon as he had said that, I knew it was on. It was a challenge.

I'd woken up in the middle of the night and had an ingenious idea. I silently zipped open the tent door and dragged Luke outside by the hood of his sleeping bag. Getting him into the tree was the hard part, and I'm surprised he didn't wake. I used a loop from his sleeping bag to hang him on a branch. He was only about a foot off the ground but by his face you would think that it was a lot more.

His arms were trapped inside the bag, so he couldn't free himself. As I made my breakfast, I watched him struggling to get out. His face was turning red with the effort. Eventually he tried to get my help. He should know better than that. I stood up from my seat on the ground and picked up a long stick. He looked at it warily.

"You wouldn't." I said nothing as I began to prod him with the stick. "Ow! Thalia! Stop it! Ow!" I just smiled and continued to poke him. Then I made my mistake. I poked him a little too hard and I saw something shift. Luke felt it too.

"Oh no." I whispered, slowly backing away. Luke looked up at the tree, then back at me again. He grinned evilly. He wiggled inside his contraption of confinement and with a snap, he fell to the ground. He landed half out of the sleeping bag on all fours, his eyes still on mine.

I turned and started to run, but then, suddenly I was on the floor with something over me. Then I realised it was Luke's arm.

"Shhh, be very quiet." He whispered in my ear, sending goose bumps up my skin. "There's something there." I tensed and turned my head very slowly to look at him. "GOT YA!" He yelled, pushing me down as he stood up and pinned me down with his foot.

"Fine. You win." I grumbled. "Why do you always win?" he laughed and pulled me up.

"Because I'm the best." I rolled my eyes at his immatureness, before whipping my knife out and positioning it underneath his neck. He gulped and I laughed.

"Now go and cook breakfast, my slave." I ordered, my knife still at his throat. He meekly obeyed and looked at me cautiously as while he made breakfast. I sat down next to him and began helping to sort out the porridge. I hated it but it worked.

"Truce?" he offered, sticking out his hand.

"Truce." I agreed, shaking it. Then he yanked hard on my arm and made me fall over – onto him. My face was only a couple of inches away from his. I locked eyes with him.

"Well, um." He cleared his throat, moving away from me and breaking the moment. I sat up straighter and resumed cooking as if nothing had happened.

"Yes, um." I tried to begin a conversation, flushed with embarrassment from the incident that had just ensued. I stirred the pan of porridge nervously. "What are we going to do now?" I asked.

"What, later today?" he asked, visibly confused by my question.

"No, forever really. We can't just keep running for the rest of our lives; we have to find somewhere to stay for more than a week. What about that camp you mentioned?"

"Isn't that in New York?" he mused, working out the best route in his head. I nodded.

"But if we start making our way over there, then we can get there eventually- right?" He nodded at me. He pulled out a small blue notebook from his backpack and started to jot things down.

"Right, so we have about $40 with us. I reckon that we can get a train across the country and hike the rest of the way there?" he wrote some more things down, doing the sums on the paper.

I was really frustrated by our lack of fund, but there wasn't anything that I could do about it – I mean, I couldn't really get a job, could I? He showed me his paper and I memorised the information.

_Train_

_Hike_

_New York – here we come! _

It wasn't much, as the rest was just random calculations, but it was better than nothing.

"Well then, we'd better get going!" we hastily finished our measly breakfast and packed up the tent. Just as I was shoving the poles into my bag, he froze. I straightened up quickly, hand on my knife.

His head darted form side to side, as he sniffed the wind. What he was doing I had no idea, as I couldn't smell a thing. Suddenly, he pushed me down to the ground as a dart whizzed over our head – exactly where my chest had been a moment before. I lifted my head up, only for Luke to gently push it back down again.

"Careful." He whispered softly in my ear. My heart jumped. "It has rubbish eyesight but very acute hearing and smell. Just stay down." We lay there for at least half an hour before Luke determined that it was really gone. I stood up and stretched my legs.

"What was that?" I asked, curious. I had no inkling of anything that threw darts – I hadn't come across it in any of my mythology lessons. I reached up to my neck and fingered my good luck charm that hung there. It was a thin string necklace with a hand carved wooden lightning bolt charm. Luke had made it for me, and I never took it off.

After chatting for a while as we finished packing our bags, we agreed to set off and hope for the best. I kicked the ground in an attempt to cover our scorch marks; to no avail. The campsite owner wouldn't be happy to find out that someone had snuck in just to use the toilets and stayed for the night.

"Shall we go then?" he questioned, offering me his arm like a gentlemen.

"We shall." I replied, before hooking my arm around his and letting him lead.

"Which way, my kind sir?" I asked, giggling.

"East." He replied pompously, knowing full well that I didn't have the points of the compass wired into my head like he did – at least not yet. He turned us ninety degrees to our right and we set off.


End file.
